Beware of Buying Georgia DNR Hunting, Fishing, Boating Licenses Online
February 14th, 2010. Published under Scams. No Comments.
In case you aren’t aware the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (Georgia DNR) has an option on their website to order and print out hunting, fishing, boating licenses and permits online. The problem is once you pay for a license or permit you may not be able to print it out, which means you just wasted your hard earned money. In an effort to save money the Georgia DNR has outsourced the license and permit registration to a company, Wildlifelicense.com, owned by Automated License Systems, Inc. out of Nashville Tennessee. A convenience fee is added to the order for obtaining licenses and permits. When the payment is finalized a pop-up window is supposed to appear so that you can print out the license or permit. Most modern web browsers block pop-ups by default. I tried to cancel the pop-up warning so that I could temporarily allow pop-ups and print my license. No such luck, all that is displayed is the confirmation of the order, the print license option disappears. Even worse, there is no option to reprint your license. I would have to say this is one of the worst online registration systems I have ever encountered in my 20 plus years of being online. Whomever programmed the WildlifeLicense.com application should not be writing business logic applications. The print license page could have been setup as a normal page rather than a pop-up. I know because our company writes e-commerce and content management web applications. We do in-depth, studious Q&A testing to ensure their are no “gotchas” such as pop-up windows or other dead-ends in our applications. There was no notice to turn off pop-up blocking or anything. Other than a GADNR Number, I got I am now out of $11.75 for my failed effort to save time obtaining a fishing license. Now I have to go buy one at a store. At least in brick-and-mortar stores I don’t have to worry about pop-up windows are being taken for $11.75. I guess I should be thankful that the lesson I learned today was too expensive. So much for convenience. Save yourself a lot of frustration and aggravation, go get your licenses and permits in person and avoid the online purchase and print option. Stay far away from WildlifeLicense.com, you’ll be much happier if you do.
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Beware of Buying Georgia DNR Hunting, Fishing, Boating Licenses Online